


In the beginning, Gabriel was a nice Archangel

by Lye_Ve



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-13 18:00:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21196307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lye_Ve/pseuds/Lye_Ve
Summary: Angels are nice. Must be nice. And Gabriel was not conceived as an unpleasant Angel at all, so what could have happened that changed him?





	In the beginning, Gabriel was a nice Archangel

**Author's Note:**

> I am not English-tongue native, so please forgive some grammar mistakes that there will be there for sure.  
It is based on the Book events, and not on the Series, so some references could be a little unknown to who did not read the Book.  
This story is a bit satirical. It is an allegory of some real politic events that are happening now in Europe. It is not meant to be offensive. However, if you voted for Brexit, you might be a little upset.  
This is an excerpt of a project I am working on, so it might actually seem without rhyme.

Gabriel was attending the umpteenth meeting between the Purgatory Delegation and The Metatron.

And if an Angel could go under a nervous breakdown, he was the one.

This sort of meetings had been going on for several centuries now, and Gabriel could recite the part of The Metatron and the Delegation by heart without having them to see each other.

However, to preside over them was his duty.

When God created everything, including the choirs of Angels, Gabriel was a serene Archangel: everything was perfect, as he wanted it, and nothing could ruin his day. Or his mood. Everyone liked Gabriel, and Gabriel liked everyone. This was because he was in the Great Plan, his role was quite important and this made him particularly proud.

Then, there was that thing about rebellion. 

It had not been sudden or unplanned: that was part of the Great Plan too, more or less. It was the way in which it happened that annoyed Gabriel: no warning, no mounting, everything was left to chance, in his opinion.

But fortunately, God had already thought of driving the rebels away.

Then, as from Plan, God created Man, in Their image and likeness. And again, from Hell, there were those who put chaos in the Project.

From then on, Heaven, a place close to God and were Gabriel lived, became accessible only to those who had followed Their word among men, and Hell was reserved for those who took another direction. There were very few souls able to reach Heaven, actually.

Few but good, thought Gabriel, whose days passed serene waiting for his moment to come.

And after a few millennia, Gabriel was finally given his real task: to announce to a human woman that she would conceive a Divine child: the Son of God.

Yet, the Great Plan almost seemed to make a mockery of Gabriel's expectations, because the death of the Messiah had opened the Gates of Heaven, giving sinners the opportunity to redeem themselves from their sins and be able to enter, after a certain period of penance, or purge, into Heaven.

Purgatory was born, and that would become Gabriel’s personal Hell: what would take him into a tunnel of neurosis and the desire to put an end to everything: the becoming of the Apocalypse. 

After the Apocalypse, in Gabriel’s expectations, there would be nothing left. Gates closed definitively: good for those who were inside, the winners, while the others would have been out for Eternity.

As a matter of fact, at first in Purgatory it all seemed perfect: whoever ended there had to work hard to be able to earn Eternal Peace in Heaven: they had to reach a small door on the top of a narrow staircase.

There were rules to get up there, and they were, of course, imposed by Heaven.

The only power that Hell had over the souls in Purgatory should have been at the moment of Apocalypse: the souls trapped in Purgatory would have to return to Earth as undead, to reap the souls of those who did not deserve Eternal Life.

From Heaven they decided good and bad weather, selecting from time to time who could pass or not. Hard and limiting rules made Hell look like a more generous place to the souls trapped in Purgatory.

And it did not take long to understand that there were more souls who arrived in Purgatory than those who managed to pass through the Gate of Paradise.

Overcrowding was a potential problem in penitent souls’ opinion, a problem which in reality did not exist as the souls are ethereal and Purgatory is a place without boundaries.

And these are the reasons why after a short time a turmoil was born that it was now lasting several centuries.

Over time, a group of souls convinced many others that Purgatory could do better without Heaven, its rules and its selection, and live as well as independents, or at most with a little help from Hell, where it seemed like something more was being given.

Besides, they had all been, more or less, humans who had not followed God's path perfectly, had they?

This displeased group called meetings, tried to provoke riots, sought supporters, and in the end, they had achieved something: organizing a referendum to break away from Heaven.

They called it "Heavexit".

This was something that was definitely not in the Great Plan, and it blew away Gabriel’s few nerves, who already had a hard time organizing the bureaucracy that had created lately.

Although a referendum may seem a simple thing, within everyone's reach, and above all an action that allows each individual to speak in an egalitarian manner, the reality does not lie in these terms.

The mass, as a matter of fact, is no more considered a group of individuals, but a body who has the faculty to develop, when not required, the ability to completely avoid any intelligent form of information, to favour more obtuse word-of-mouth methods based on negative feelings, gossip and dissatisfaction. 

No matter whether they reflect reality or not.

This is why the referendum vote turned out to be interesting to those souls who had been stuck in Purgatory for such a long time that Paradise was seen as a place that limited their freedoms, while souls who had recently arrived preferred to continue to work and not vote, because they had not taken the Heavexit seriously. 

Sure no one with a bit of common sense would do it.

As predicted by the "Heavexiters" group, many of the voters did not inquire about the consequences and for a small percentage, the idea of getting out of the authority of Paradise won.

After coming up with the result The Metatron reported that God in Their magnanimity had accepted the majority's decision and that the rules of the exit of Purgatory from Heaven's dominion were quite simple: the boundaries - that’s to say, the small door - were to be closed; the souls in Purgatory would have been accepted in Paradise, but with extremely more restrictive rules and with more bureaucracy; stricter controls and several Guard angels were to be put in action.

On the other hand, thought the Purgatory Delegation, the alliance with Hell would certainly have become stronger, different rules for all the souls would have come in advantage. 

However, when a rumour spread that in addition to a more difficult passage to Paradise, an arrival of unpleasant things such as gelatinous walls, dirty sand and other not very specified or unpleasant devices and rules would have been authorized to come from hell, many voters asked to withdraw.

In the end, all the “Heavexit” thing had begun to turn bad, especially to those who were in the Highest Circles and worked for centuries to reach that tiny door and had almost arrived.

And in all this mess, the Archangel Gabriel, head of the Circles of the angels of Heaven, was the one who had to take care of bureaucracy, by imparting the preliminary rules for an Exit without harming the worthy souls.

This was one of the reasons he hoped so much for an Armageddon.

"If there had been Armageddon," he suggested at the Metatron after the meeting, "we would have gotten rid of it: no more meetings, begging delegations that come here with requests that change by an adjective or a sequence, and that in the end are even so the same!"

He indicated to the Metatron a huge stack of sheets: thousands of requests and compromises that had accumulated over the centuries.

The Metatron, who among other things never presented himself physically, but always through a metaphysical appearance - a kind of paradisiacal Skype - answered him very calmly.

"Gabriel, you know what the practise dictated by God is. They have the right to ask to come to terms with Their rules."

"Sure, I know! The terms are that they must close that door within a certain time, with certain rules! But then they send delegations with requests about the conditions to close it. In Their... magnanimity, does God listen to them? NO! They make me listen and study! To see whether to accept or reject those requests! But as much as those requests are accepted or rejected by us, little can be done, because then they do not agree between themselves in Purgatory! We give them time to find an agreement but they don't. Then they change their Delegation, which brings other requests, and in doing so they keep on delaying the detachment from Heaven! It's been like this for centuries! This thing is becoming the joke of the whole Creation. I really cared about Armageddon, at least we would have put an end to everything!”

He pointed to one side of the room that overlooked the corridor of the Purgatory door. "Some jester also put a sign on the door with the sentence ‘We Heavexit tomorrow’!"

The Metatron raised a brow in anger. "Is this a reference to the fact that neither I nor Beelzebub were able to convince the Adversary to begin the Armageddon?"

Gabriele smiled. His smile allowed him to regain control of everything, even of himself when he was about to burst. Even on the Metatron, which was considered the Angel closest to God.

"Absolutely no. I'm sure you did your best. But you were in two, weren't you? There was a fifty/fifty chance of failure. And the fifty percent of failure seems to have prevailed. After all, all the plan was conceived in Hell, and you know they are not organized down there. Or else wouldn't be called Hell. "

The Metatron did not answer: he merely closed the communication.


End file.
